E 




P E E C JH 



GMSORG^E 



GIH^.H 



— AT THE — 



State ReDuMicaii Convention 




MASSACHUSETTS, 

Sept. 19, 1S77. 




Our duty, today, is simple and honorable. 
We are commissioned to designate a fitting 
successor to that line of illustrious magistrates 
to whom, by annual election, the people of this 
state have entrusted their executive power from 
the days of Wiuthrop and Bradford, with a 
single interval, until the present hour. I hope 
the events of recent years have cured us of a 
spirit ot boasting. But if any man be inclined 
to question the capacity of an educated people 
for self-government, he is invited to compaie 
the roll of popular governors of Massachusetts 
with those who were placed over her by royal 
authority during the period of the provincial 
government, or with the succession of occu- 
pants of any throne, or the prime ministers of 
any European state from 1620 until today. 

But we have other than mere state interests. 
We have cUities whose importance is not meas- 
ured by state lines. The time has its own ques- 
tions which concern the people of the wnole 
country. The people of the whole country look 
with interest for the opinions ot the republicans 
of Massachusetts. 

We have lately passed through a season of 
great difficulty and peril. It is, I thiul{, the 
first time in history that a serious question of 
title to the supreme executive power lu any ua- 
tion has been settled otherwise than by force. 
After a presidential contest of unparalleled 
earnestness, in which, in large sections of the 
country, the entire population almost seemed 
divided into two hostile camps, it turned out 
that to determine the result required the deci- 
sion of the gravest questions of constitutional 
law, concerning which the two political parties 
and the two houses of congress differed irrecon- 
cileably. There existed no tribunal or arbiter 
authorized to decide betweeu them. Unlets 
such a tribunal could be created it is difficult to 
see how the country could have escaped the 
most serious convulsions. The power to deter- 
mine all these questions had been claimed for 
the president of the senate. But that ])ower 
was' not only denied by the majority of the 
house, but a majority of the republicans in the 



senate were committed against it. If it had 
been asserted and supported by a majority ia 
the senate, it cannot be doubted tliat one per- 
son would have been declared elected by the 
senate, while another person would have been 
elected and declared entitled to his office Iw the 
house. The outgoing president, the neS^sof 
departments, the senate, and the governineuTs 
of the great republican states would have recog- 
nized one claimant, while the other would have 
been recognized and supported by the new 
house of representatives, the solid south and the 
executives of the great northern states of New 
York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Indiana. 
In other words, we should have had a contro- 
versy as to the great vital question, who was en- 
titled to obedience and recognition as president 
of the United States, a controversy not between 
section and section, not between the Union aud 
some of the state'^, but a controversy separating 
men by party lines, and extending through the 
entire country. The house of representatives, 
in anticipation of this confiici, would doubtless 
have refused to pass any appropriations which 
could be used in support of an administration 
whose title it denied. I do not say that the 
good sense of the American people would not 
have found some escape from this condition of 
things other than through civil war, with its 
certain destruction of credit, industry and prop- 
erty, and its probable destruction of the republic 
itself. But I do say that no other escape from 
these things was suggested or devised so far as 
1 know, except that which was in fact adopted. 
It is highly to the credit of both polincai parties 
that amid the excitements and passions of the 
hour a peaceful aud lawful solution was at- 
tained. 

The decision of the electoral commission must 
be approved or condemned by the American 
people and by history accordmg to their ulti- 
mate judgment of the soundness of the inter- 
pretation of the constitution on which it rests. 
Any decision must have occasioned the deepest 
. disappointm nt to the losing party. It is nat- 
ural that for the time tliis disaijpoiutment 






sliould find expression in bitter comphiint and 
in unjust and angry cluuiies against political 
opponents. Unlui[)iiil.v, lilie cbart;es are nut 
new in our political liistoiy. I'lolialjly, a ina- 
joiiiy ol the American people believe,! for a 
time tliat Jolm Qiiincy Adams obtained the 
presidency by a corrupt bargain with Mr Clay. 
Andrew Jackfou professed hiiiisell so assured of 
this baroain that he refused to extend to his 
predecessor the ordinary courtesies of social 
life. Tlie pure lame of Air. Adams has long 
suivived the cnlumny which the disappointed 
democracy of his time poured out upon his 
name. Tiie calumny is only to be remembered 
for the lesson which it teaches to distrust judg- 
ments formed and colored by the bitternets of 
personal disappointment or party defeat. 

Daring the c.imuaign there came from three 
of the southern stales complaints that armed 
minorities were conspiring to overcome by force 
and fear the resistance of the majority, and so 
take lawless possession of their slate govern- 
raeuts and of their electoral colleges; that i)ub- 
lic meetings of republicaus were surrounded by 
bands of mounted and armed ruffians, striking 
terror alike into speaker and hearer, while 
prominent republicans were maiked for secret 
assassination. These charges derived probability 
trom occurrences like the massacre at Hamburg, 
too notorious to be concealed or misuntlerstood, 
from the Mississippi cami)aign of 1874, and the 
terrible annals of Louisiana with their story of 
blood and crime from 18i;6 down to the present 
J ear. 

ISoon as the campaign was over, complaints 
came from the other side that the officials 
charged by these states with the duiy of count- 
ing the votes and decliriug the result had con- 
spired to defeat the will of the people and de- 
clare the result falsely. Gentlemen high iu the 
confidence of the two parties went to the dis- 
puted states to watch the count of the votes. 
VVheu congress met, each of the two branches 
sent committees to make investigation, lu 
every instance the republican majority of the 
committees of the senate reported to that body 
tliat the states to which they were sent had 
been carried by the republicans, the democratic 
minority dissenting. In every instance, the 
democratic majority of the committees of the 
house reported to that body that the disputed 
states had been carried by the democrats, the 
republican minority dissenting. There was in 
some cases even more than difference of opinion 
as to the result of the evidence. The minority 
charged upon their associates iu the Louisiana 
committee the design and purpose to prevent a 
full investigation into the crimes committed 
iu some of the parishes, and a refusal to take 
or to report evidence needful to a fair deter- 
mination of the true result of the election in 
that state. 

Now, unpleasant as the fact may be, who can 
doubt that the result of all this would have been 
that, with scarce an exception, republicans 
would have taken the republican ,and demo- 
crats the democratic side, of these questions. 
The republican senate, whenever it acted, would 
have sustained the report of the republican 
can committees. The democratic house, when- 
ever it acted, would have acted in accordance 
with the report of its democratic committees. 

I make the statement in no partisan spirit. 
It is a confession humiliating to us as Ameri- 
cans, humiliating to human nature itself, to 
say that with the single exception of Reverdy 
Johnson, the democrat has not yet been found, 
who iu the presence of the clearest evidence of 
murder or other outrage wrought lor political 
ends by those of his own party"^ has either con- 
demned it, endeavored to punish it, refused to 



firofil by it, or even been willing to repcjit it 
iionestly. 

Under these ciriiumstances, the two houses 
united 111 creating the electoral commission, ex- 
pressly referring to tliem tlie question whether 
any power existed in cougiess to oveiturn or go 
behind the decision of the stale officers as to the. 
choice of electors. This question was not only 
carefully stated and relerred to the commis- 
sion in the act itself, which gave to the commis- 
sion only "such powers as congress possesses, 
if any," buc was declared by Judge Thurman ol 
Ohio, a democratic member of the committee 
whicli framed the bill, not to be decided by ihe 
bill, but left to the commission. Nothing but 
the most intense strain of party excitement and 
necessity could ever have induced the demo- 
crats to assert such power. It had been earn- 
estly <lenied iu del>ate in the senate, within a 
year before the election, by Messrs. Thurman 
anil Bayard, two of their most distinguished 
leaders in tlie senate, as it has been since the 
decision of the commission by Chief Justice 
Church of New York, their most distinguished 
living jurist. 

The commission held that the power of de- 
ciding who had been duly chosen electors was 
iu the states. They held that the votes of such 
persons were to be counted as the tril)unal 
clioseu for that purpose iu each state had de- 
clared to have been duly appointed its electors. 
They held that congiess had no authority on 
pretense or suggestion of mistake, misconduct, 
fraud or any other ground whatever to usurp 
the power to determine who had been chosen 
electors in any state, or to reverse or overturn 
on any pretense whatever the state's decision 
by its own conscituted tribunal. 

We did not hold, as is sometimes represented, 
that the certificate of the certifying officer, gov- 
ernor or secretary, or whoever else he may be, 
was conclusive. But the determination of the 
tribunal itself, constituted by the state for that 
purpose, is binding upon all other authority. 
Just as the judgment of the supreme court of 
the United Stales, in cases within the jurisdic- 
tion given it by the constitution, is conclusive, 
and no man can be heaad anywhere to contro- 
vert it, or to impute that the judges miscon- 
ducted or erred through mistake or by fraudu- 
lent design, so the judgment of the state, ren- 
dered at the time prescribed, and before the 
electors vote, is final upon the title of the elect- 
ors. The clerk of the supreme court might 
fraudulently or by mistake wrongfully certify 
as to what the record of its judgment showed. 
So the secretary or governor of a state might 
wrongfully certify as to the contents or effect 
of the record of the judgment of its returning 
board, and that wrong certificate may be cor- 
rected by the real judgment. This is the sim- 
ple principle which the commission applied to 
all the disputed states, to Florida, to Louisiana, 
to South Carolina, to Oregon. 

Upon the soundness of this doctrine I am 
willing to risk whatever title I have to the re- 
spect of my fellow-citizens now or hereafter. 
I have one thing to say to our democratic 
brethren: If any democratic statesman, fairly 
representing the opinions of his party, with auy 
regard for his clTaracter or with any character 
to regard; if any democratic convention com- 
missioned to utter the opinions of the democra- 
cy of the country will in any formal and authen- 
tic way plant itself upon a denial of the doctrine 
applied by the commission, I think the repub- 
licans will be willing to join them in taking the 
sense of the American people, whether the presi- 
dent is henceforth to be chosen, as the constitu- 
tion requires, by electors whose title to cast 
their vote is determined by the states for whom 



they lift, or wlunhor, on tlie other liHiul, the 
right tu tlic pie.^ichjiitial ofticc is to lie ilecidud 
by a party vote, like a cotitcsted election case iu 
the house of re;iieseiit:itivcf!. 

The wise heads of tha democratic party skill- 
fully avoid a position so repusnaiit to the con- 
siifctioii and so opjjosed to their o»'n traditions, 
opinions and luture inlercsts. They content 
ilieniselves by savmu witli load outcry and 
clamor that th ■ repuhhcan party owes its vic- 
tory to fraud in three of the states. The clsarge 
rests upon no l)ap:s whatever, except the reports 
of picjndiced committees, who close their eyes 
to the methods by which the will of the people 
of those states, republican by large majorities, 
was obstructed iu its true expression, an expres- 
sion which their state boards had alone authori- 
ty to ascertain and declare. 

The people of Mas«achusetts are happily 
agreed by a large majority of both parties iu 
desiring an early return to specie payments. Un- 
der the operation of the resumption law of 1876, 
defective as that statute is, the greenback now 
fluctuates within from five to three per cent of 
an equality with gold. The secretary of the 
treasury expresses his certain couviclion that 
with the means at his commaud, if no adverse 
Jegislation be had, he will be able to resume 
specie payments by the 1st of January, 1879. I 
believe with him that until the resumption of 
specie payments be assured "there will be no 
new enterprises involving great sums, no active 
industries, but money will lie idle and watch 
and wait tlie changes that may be made before 
we reach the specie standard." 

Tlie great fame of Mr. Webster as an orator 
and constitutional lawyer has eclipsed his title 
to regard as a clear and profound reasoner on 
currency and finance. I believe him to have 
been one of the highest authorities we have 
erer had in this country on these subjects. He 
declared in Boston, late in life, that Uuring his 
whole political caieer, ever since the time of his 
coming into congress thirty years before, he had 
devoted himself in prelereuce to all otiier topics 
to the study of the finances ol the country. 

He never uttered a sentence which better de- 
served to take its place among the accepted ax- 
ioms of governmeuc than these: 

"The prosperity of the working classes lives, 
moves and has its being in establislK-d credit 
anil a steady medium ot payment." * * * ♦ 

"When tliat fluid in 'he human si'stem in- 
dispensable to life becomes disordered, cor- 
rupted or obstructed iin its circulation, not the 
head or the heart alone suffers, but the whole 
body — head, heart and hand, all the members 
and all the extremities — is affected with debili- 
ty, paralysis, numbness and death. The anal- 
ogy between the human system and the social 
and political system is complete; and what the 
life blood is to the former, circulation, money, 
currency is to the latter; and if that be disor- 
dered or corrupted, paralysis must fall on the 
system." 

Bat while the folly of an irredeemable cur- 
rency has been always clearly seen by the Yan- 
kee sagacity of New England and the commer- 
cial experience of New York without regard to 
party lines, there are other parts of the country 
in which different theories have prevailed. 
Some of our brethren in the far west have been 
disposed to impute the New England desire for 
a return to specie payment to the supposed fact 
that the accumulated capital of the east is in 
the hands of money lenders, who selfishly de- 
sire to increase the value of the debts due from 
debtor stales, at the expense of the debtor, or lo 
the influence of speculators in bonds or bullion. 

No greater mistake was ever made. Specu- 
lators who gamble in the stock marketer the 



gold market find their best harvest in the fluc- 
tuations which end when a uniform and stable 
currency is established. The savings of our 
working classes are largely invested in savings 
banks whose lundsaie in government bonds 
and other forms of credit. Bat the class of 
mere lenders of money as distinguished from 
workmen or business men whose capital is in- 
vested in productive enterprise, is not very 
large, and is by no meaus influential la making 
up the political opinion of the people of New 
England. 

The business man and the laborer of the east 
have the same interesfs, are embarked in the 
same boat, must seek success by the same 
methods as those of the rest of the country. 
They must find it, and find it alone in the pros- 
perity of the rest »f the country. 

The East, New England, Massachusetts, pos- 
sess capital, skilled labor, a full population, in- 
stitutions of education, admirable political con- 
stitutions, an honorable history full of stimu- 
lant memories. What Massachusetts wants — 
the one thing needful to her complete prosperi- 
ty — is a prosperous west and a prosperous 
south. She desires thaS the safe and steady 
maxims of business, that the stable currency, 
life-blood of trade, that the jealous care for 
credit which, in her own prosperity, have borne 
such abundant fruit, may bring forth a still 
larger harvest on their wider and more fertile 
fields. 

Without a stable currency, resting upon a 
specie basis, there can be neither safety in cred- 
it, nor any certain measure for exchange. Bold 
and reckless speculation alternates with timid- 
ity, paralysis and stagnation. Debts, public 
and private, recklessly contracted, are regarded 
only as a burden, never as an obligation. The 
sentiments of honor and honesty are eliminated 
from business. Public and private credit cease 
to be among the resources of the republic. 

"The wise merchant," says the great philoso- 
pher of our day, "by truth in his dealings can 
use in turn as he wants it, all the property in 
the world." What powers are in the hands of 
these great property owners, the people of the 
northwest and the southwest and the south, 
with their mighty rivers and lakes waiting for 
commerce, their timber lauds, their infinite corn 
fields and cotton fields, their sugar and rice, 
their mines of gold and silver and coal, let but 
this one thing be established. 

A kindred error, as it seems to me, to that 
which would carry on the business of the coun 
try with irredemable paper, is that which 
would lower and make uncertain the standard 
of value by rendering silver a legal tender to all 
amounts. There is some plausibility to the ar- 
gument that as the public debt is payable, prin- 
cipal and interest, in coin, the government 
which must have borne the loss if gold and sil- 
ver both had risen in value by eome unexpected 
cause, is fairly entitled to the benefit if one of 
the metals be cheapened by a largely increased 
supply. I should be slow to admit this argu- 
ment, even if the creditor and the government 
were alone concerned. Silver was at best but a 
subsidiary coin used for payments of small 
amounts only, and never contemplated by either 
party as the medium of payment of any consid- 
erable sum. It would be a sharp and hard ad- 
vantage, hardly worthy of a great government, 
to get a forced discount on its liability by avail- 
ing itself of this unexpected cheapening of the 
subsidiary coin. It would be quite as dignified 
and honorable to pay off the creditor in copper. 

But the chief objection to the monetization of 
silver is its effec on the currency. There are 
persons rt ho seem always striving to provide 
for the American people tiie worst m^ney that 



4 



tliey can persuade them to receive. If they will 
not accept tbut wliich is absolutely woillile.is, 
then at least Rive then] the most worth loss pos- 
sible. They were never lieaid urging the 
adoption of silver as money until the late addi- 
tion to Ihe supply cheapened that metal as com- 
pared with gold, and they do not now advocate 
it except at a rate which will lower the value of 
tlie dollar. 

The tendency of the great commercial nntions 
of the world is to the adoption of gold as the ex- 
clusive siaudaid of value. To ^ive silver a 
place in the currency ot the United States by 
makiuii' it a tender for all amounts will cause a 
large influx of silver to this country where aloue 
among hrst-class nations it will have value as 
money, while gold will be drained to those 
countries where it is in demand as the sole 
standard. Silver will then become a drug in 
our maikets aud gold become scarce. If the 
recent increase of supply from our mines shall 
be maiiitained, its value will sfdl lurcher be re- 
duced, the stability of the currency, which by 
tlie resumpiiou of specie payment should be at- 
tained, be destroyed, and the value of what will 
be practiciilly our only medium of exchange 
tlucUiate in accordance with the price of shares 
in some Coi'\stoek lode or Big Bonanza. 

There has been no time for thirty-live years, 
when the most prominent theme of political 
discussion nas not been the relation aud duty 
ot the American people toward the colored 
population of the south. The annexation of 
Texas, the war wi;h Mexico, the admission of 
Calilornia, the fugitive slave law, the repeal of 
the Missouri compromise, the attempt to force 
slavery on Kansas, the election of Lincoln, the 
rebellion, the enlistment of colored troops, the 
proclamation of emaucipatiou, the three last 
ameudmcnts to the eonstituiion,the readmission 
of the seceding states, the kuklux lo'.;islati(ni, — 
all iliese have been either the efforts of the 
white people of the south to strengthen or to 
extend tiie institution which subjected the 
negro to their uncontrolled will, or etforts of- the 
people of the noith, on the other hand, to per- 
form or to escape the duty to this class of their 
countrymen, wiiich justice and the law of God, 
uuder the most terrible penalties, demanded at 
their hands. If any m"an be inclined to lose 
faith, or lose heart, if any man doubt oti which 
side are tiie permanent aijd prevailing forces, if 
any raan — 1 would speak it revereutiv — doubt 
on which side is the power that has built ihis 
fabric of things, let him compare the conditiau 
of tlie negro race today with its condition in 
1842. Then the constitutions of the nation aud 
of half the states, the decisions of the highest 
courts, the interest of trade and manufacture, 
the public sentiment of the whole country, 
stronger than constitutions or statutes, were 
millstones about his neck, sinking him, as it 
seemed, into the fathomless depths of a hopeless 
and endless slavery. 

I think in that very year. Prudence Crandall 
was in jail in Connecticut lor teaching a colored 
child to read. 

Today the colored man is a freeman, a citizen, 
a voter, a holder of office, a land owner. The 
schools are op m to his children. His risiht to 
all these things is secured by the Constitution 
of the United States and of every state, by the 
resolutions of both political parties, by the 'opin- 
ions of one of the great parties of the coun- 
try, and by the professions, at least, and most 
solemn pledges of the leaders of the other. 1 
do not doubt that there is still grave and serious 
danger. There are men, able and numerous at 
the south, who mean, having first driven out 
from their states all white men who differ from 
them, to deprive the negro of the political and 



legal rights conferred on him by the amend- 
meuts to the constitution, aud to reduce 
him to such a condition of political and 
personal dependence upon the whiles, that the 
will of the latter shall be the law which deter- 
mines his personal rights, and lixes the price 
and condition of his laoor. This is paitly a 
conscious, purpose, and partly the effect of 
tliat curious mental hallucination wiiich, wiiile 
persuading itself of a desire to treat the colored 
man with justice, seems to lose unconseiously 
all understanding of what justice ami eqality 
really are wherever he is concerned. Tliete are 
still meu at the n(.)rth willing to buy power and 
office by pauderin,-,' lo these designs. The breed of 
doughfaces is not extiuct. But these evil jiur- 
poses cannot now be brought to pass without a 
revolution, every step in wli ise progress is not 
ouly a moral but a legal crime, whose success 
must bring with it not ouly the praeiical over- 
throw of thu constitution, but personal dislionor 
to the men whose solemn pledges it violates. 

I do not stand here to advise you to relax any- 
thing of your watchfulness to oreserve the Held 
you have won. Without constant and per]ieMial 
vigilance nothing in a republic is secure. But 
to be afraiil that, in SjUte of it, these designs 
will be successful, is to despair of the republic 
Itself. 

The mode in which President Hayes has dealt, 
witli the southern problem, as it is called, dur- 
ing the first six monihs of his term of office, ex- 
cites, as is natural, deep solicitude and earnest 
discussion. It is his great good fortune, that to 
a degree almost without an example, both 
friends aud Ojipone-fits accord to hiin the praise 
of peifect hunesty of purpose. By a solemn 
declaration he has put it out of his power to iie 
a candidate tor re-election, ile cau have no 
other ambition than to ejun the appiobatiou ol 
his countrymen by the purest and highest puii- 
lic service. He has made no other complete 
statement of the iirinciphs which will govern 
his administration than that contained in the 
piatlorm adopted at Cincinnati and his huier of 
acceptance, both of which are well known aud 
satisfactory to tlio.»e who voted for him. 

No man is more thoroughly piedged tiiaii 
President Hayes to uphold the constitutional 
rights and the constitutional equality of all citi- 
zens of the United States. To this his record of 
civil and military service aud his official pledjies 
alike bind him fast. In all his public utiei- 
ances since he came into office Iih has insisted 
on this as luudameutal. Indeed, that every 
voter in the country shall be protected in the 
riglits conferred by the thirteenth, fourteenth, 
aud tifteenth amendments by every exertion of 
nationaf power necessary to that end, is not 
matter of executive discretion or legislative dis- 
cretion, it is constitutional duty, which neither 
president nor legislator sworn to support the 
constitution can rightfully disregard. 

The executive action of the president has-been 
the subject ol severe criticism in three x)articu- 
lars. 

He lias refused to use the military forces to 
maintain the governments of Chamberlain in 
South Carolina, and Packard in Louisiana. 

He has ai)pointetl a southern democrat, form- 
erly a high officer in the confederate army, to a 
seat in the cabinet. 

lie has manifested in his personal and official 
bearing a temper and spirit of friendliness aud 
contldeiice toward the southern whites. 

The refusal to use the military lorces of the 
United States to keep iu power the governments 
of Chamberlain and Packard seems to me to 
have been a constitutional necessity. The con- 
stitution provides that "no appropriation of 
money for the use ot the army shall be for a 



longf'i- period than two year?." It was iu- 
teudcd by this lauLjuage to enable congress 
to determine tlie uses to wliieli the mili- 
tiiry force of the country sliould be put, by 
au opportunity to act upou the question of their 
support at least once in the term of every house 
of representatives, and the statute authority lo 
the president lo call out the militia and employ 
the laud and n.ival forces must be interpreted in 
the lijiht of that provision. The late house of 
iei)reseutaiives had refused appropriations lor 
the ai'iny unless the bill should contain an ex- 
press prohibition ol such exertion of military 
force, to which the senate refusing its consent, 
the supplies for the army were withheld alto- 
geihei'. A new liouse of repreeentaiives had 
bei'M chosen who, as every well informed man 
knows, would adhere to the action of its pie- 
decessor. The duty of determining wh,!t policy 
shall permanently control the use? of the mili- 
tary i'orci'S of the United States rcs;s with con- 
gress. The duty of deciding wiio shall be re- 
coiiuised as the true government of a stale, 
under the decision of I he sui)renie court rests 
also with congress. The i)resident niiiiht, in- 
deed, lor a fevv'weelcs have lawfully mainiaiued 
the governments of South Carolina and Louis- 
iana in the state houses lo which they were 
contined. Hut whenever his right to use the 
armj' or his lawful resources for its supply 
ended, those goverDineuts must have fallen. 

But the president's action does not lind its 
vindication in necessity alone. He has done 
something more and quite different from the 
tibandonmeut of force, simply because torce be- 
came, for the time, impossible. He has sought 
to meet in a spirit of confidence and friendship 
tb" assurances of prominent soutliern men of a 
..i^a-e, on their p»rt, to suj>port, in good faith, 
hereafter, the results of the war and the whole 
amended consiituiion. Those who lind fault 
with this policy overlook, it seems to me, Ihe 
cuiisideration how narrow are the limits in 
) which mere force, t>r law speaking only through 
its punishmeiils, have their domain. The of- 
ienses of individu;ils, having no Dublic senti- 
ment in their support and not stimulated by sec- 
tional or party spirit, are easily suppressed. But 
at the end of a great civil war, where the edu- 
cation and habits of thought ot gener.ilions, 
where the pride of slate and race, and the 
S[)irit of parly inflame the evil, other iusliu- 
mentalities must effect the cure. 

I do not utter these opinions now, for the first 
time. It was my duty two years ago to visit 
tiie stall' of Louisiana, as a member of the com- 
mittee of the house of rej)resentalives, to iu- 
vestigatethe disorders in that state. In the re- 
port which it was my office to write, but which 
derives added weight from the signatures of 
Vice Presidenc Wheeler gnd Mr. Frye of Maine, 
the committee say: 

"This great movement of the public mind in 
great states is not to be dealt with as if it were 
a street riot. You cannoL change great currents 
of public sentiment or the habits of thought and 
feeling of great bodies of men by act of con- 
gress. In a republic you cauuot long or perma- 
nently check their manifestation by the exercise 
of national power." 

1 have little respect for weak and gushing 
platitudes. But when the president of the 
Unitsd States, in his own person one of the best 
types of that citizen soldiery which subdued the 
rebellion, and by his office the representative 
alike of the loyalty and the authority of the coun- 
try, deems that the lilting time to extend the 
right hand has come, the elforr at harmony 
must not tail for want of the hearty support of 
the republicans of Massachusetts. 
The president also has acted wisely in invit- 



ing the co-operation in his administration of a 
disting(!ish''d democrat f)f the south, hoiioied 
by his own parly and section, who accepts and 
supports in good faith all the results of the war. 
In not deeming a share in the rebellion reason 
for perpetual exclusion fiom public office of 
those who accept honestly and heartily these re- 
sults, President Hayes but follows the example 
set by Gen. Grant in the cases of Attorney G''i>- 
eral Akermau and Gen. Longstreet. The great 
victory cf the Union arms was achieved, not to 
make the men of the south dnpendeuts, but only 
equals; not to bring them to your feet, but only 
to your side. You conquered only to achieve a 
fuller and more perfect union; not that you 
miiiht have vassal stales or subject citizens. 

It was asked, the other day, in this I'.all, if it 
is to be lohn-ated that a Union and a rebel gen- 
eral should be seen standing together on ihe 
same platform. I ausver, yes, if that plailorm 
be made up ol the unity of the republic and tiie 
three amendments lo tiie consiituiion. 

The plailorm ado[)Ced at Cineinu-iti, and the 
letter of acceptance of Prcsideiu Hayes loliow- 
iiig the earlier example of the iMassaehusetts 
rejiublicau state convention ol 1873, pleducil Ihe 
iiicfjming admiuistralion to atiempt the over- 
tlij-ow of a gigantic tliieefold evil. Tm; (ivil 
service of the country has taken three snccess- 
sive downward steps since the inauguratiou of 
Andrew Jackson in 1829. For the Hrst fcnty 
years of the government, although i)ariy leci- 
ina burned with a fierceness of which in our 
f;ivored state today we have little lonceplimi, 
there were few removals from office, and those 
for cause in no way connected with political 
opinion. Andrew Jackson inaugurated the sys- 
tem of removal for mere opinion, an example 
which has been followed by all his successors. 
This was the hrst downward step. 

Nowhere in the constitution is power express- 
ly given to the president to remove civil ol- 
licers. The construction which originally con- 
ceded it lo J'residenl Washington, only pre- 
vailed on a tie vote in the senate by the cast- 
ing vote of John Adams. II has been denird 
by many of our ablest statesmen, both in early 
and later times. But the weight of the argu- 
ment is in its lavor. A practice uubroken for 
nearly fourscoie years has firmly eslalilislied 
the p(jwer, to which what remains of the tenure 
of office act will be but a slight impedimeut. 
Bui the generation wh ich framed the consiiui- 
tiou never dreamed that the president would ii'- 
move faithlnl public officers on account of iheir 
opinions. Mr. Madison declared that such an 
act would be sufficient cause for the imiieach- 
ment and removal from office of the president 
himself. 

The evil — fruit of this seed — can hardly be 
overstated. It excludes from the service of the 
people all good men, no matter svhat their title 
to lespect or gratitude, unless they agree in 
opinion with the dominant party. It puts con- 
straint on cne freedom of thought and action of 
large numbers of our most active citizens. It 
places all the office holders of the country, now 
more than sixty-two thousand in number, who 
should be, and commonly are, among our most 
efficient and int; lligent citizens, in the degrad- 
ing position of being compelled to agree in opin- 
ion with the president in all the nev7 and shift- 
ing phases of politics on pain of loss of subsis- 
tence by themselves and their families. It has 
been well said that if ^Valren had been among 
the living he could not have held office without 
a party collar about his neck. The offices cre- 
ated to serve the people, under the opeiation of 
this rule, are used only to bribe them. Office 
and honors are given as rewards for political 
service and not for merit. Political service in 
its turn is given only for reward. 



But the worst evil of a partisan civil sprvice is 
not Its immediate injury to otticials or peo|ile. 
It tends to uiti;um> and increase tliat party spirit 
ag.iinst which VVasiiin.utuu, in his tarewell ad- 
dress, warns us as tlie one greatest danger to 
our country. Tlie warning against that senti- 
ment, so Irnitful of danger, called party spirit, 
is not a warning against party itself. Parties 
are honorable, useful, necessary. Tliey aie old 
as liberty, old as government, older than his- 
tory. Party should lie tht union of men, con- 
nected by no Ottier band than that of honest, 
unb'iught opinion as to what is for the interest 
of the state to carry tliat opinion into political 
effect in its administration. Tne evil of party 
spirit is that it transfers to that association a 
love, allegiance and obedience due only to the 
state itself. Now wliat must be the effect in In- 
flaming this spirit to have nearly one-half of the 
|)eople continue for a generation to feel that they 
are excluded from all share in the government 
by rf^asou of their opinion, even from those 
functions which their opinions do not affect. 
To them the government becomes only the rep- 
resentative of their antagonists. It is, to their 
minds, only organized party. Every act of its 
necessary authority is viewed as the act of an 
enemy. Its victories in war, its most success- 
ful and beneficent administration in peace, are 
regarded with jealousy and dislike, as tending 
to prolong the rule of toes, and perpetuate their 
own exclusion from power. 

The holders of ofHce, appointed as a reward 
for political service, tend naturally to become a 
compact and ilisciplined cohort, exerting a pow- 
erful influence upon the political action of the 
rest of the people. This is the second down- 
ward step. They are expected to give time, and 
he subject to assessments of money for tlie ser- 
vice ol the party. The whole peo[>le, witltout 
distinction of party, is thus taxed to sup|)ort 
body of men for the service of the party. This 
second evil is none the less real and formidable 
because it has been sometimes exaggerated, or 
because there are localities to which its influence 
has not reached. I have no faith in Mr. Cal- 
houn's prophecy that when the number of hold- 
ers of otfice shall reach one hundred thousana 
it will be impossible for the American people to 
dislodge Irom power the governing party which 
has such a band at its service. The temper cf 
the American people must be radically changed 
if such an influence does cot generate a resist- 
ing power ample for its overthrow. Certainly 
in that part of Massachusetts in whose service 
my own official life has for eight years been 
spent no such influence has been ever exerted. 
1 do not believe the people of Worcester county 
differ in that respect from the majority of the 
people of Massachusetts. The holders of fed- 
eral and state offices have been men of intelli- 
gence and woith who have never violated the 
proprieties of their place. The proportion of 
them who have been active politicians has been 
no greater than the proportion of such politi- 
cians among the citizens at large. The small 
number of them who have been leaders in poli- 
tics would have taken the same place if their 
party had been out of power or they themselves 
had held no office. A new ylemtut has been in- 
troduced, under republican rule, which has 
largely diminished this special evil, as com- 
pared with democratic adrainistralions since the 
days of Jackson. That element is the recogni- 
tion ot the superior title of the citizen soldier, 
who renderea service to his country in the hour 
of her peril to every civil opportunity. But our 
own party is not fai:Itless in this regard. I have 
no doubt that under the administration of Grant 
this evil has been felt heavily in parts of the 
country, especially in the large commercial 
cities. I have no doubt that if this weapon be 



not now cast aside it will hereafter in uns'^riipu- 
lous hands become dangerous to lilierly. Uur 
ablest and wisest statesmen, from Washington 
to Sumner, have uttered abundant warnini:s 
against the two evils I have described. If I 
were to undertake to cite them I should detain 
you till the sun went down. 

A third downward step, of still worse public 
conseqnenee, has been taken since the victory 
of congress in its controversy with Andrew 
Johnson. From the feeble hands of Johnson, 
contending against the victorious loyalty of the 
coimtry represented by a two-thirds majority 
iu both blanches, congress, for the safety of the 
public, deemed itself compelled to wrest 
a portion of the executive power. It was 
a measure deemed necessary in a time of 
public danger, which should have been aban- 
doned when the danger was over. There grew 
up in congress a claim, not merely that its mem- 
bers should be respected and consulted like 
other citizens, in executive appointments, but 
of a right to dictate those appointments to the 
president and heads of department. The result 
soon was that iu many cases these appoint- 
ments were used by members of congress as 
patronage for their own personal advantage. 
As President Hayes well says, "The offices in 
these cases become not merely rewards for par- 
ty services, but rewards for services to party 
leaders." Where this practice obtains, each 
senator or representative surrounds himself, 
at the public expense, with a band of adherents 
devoted to his personal fortunes. This power, 
we all know, may be very much abused, and 
become a public scandal in the hands of an 
adroit, unscrupulous, self-seeking representa- 
tive. 

I ilesire to quote iu this connection, after the 
presidential election, a few sentences which I 
uttered before. 

But the evil is greater yet when the claim is 
made by the senator, and when it is supported 
by an understanding among senators that no 
a|>pointment shall be confirmed to which the 
senator from the state to which it rela es ob- 
jects, and no appointment rejected, except in 
rare cases, which that senator has advised. 
From this understanding have proceeded many 
of those appointments to office, especially in the 
south, which have met the public disapproba- 
tion. Instead of the question concerning can- 
didates to office, "Is he honest, is he capable, is 
lie faithful to the constitution?" instead, even, 
of the question, "Is he faithful to the principles 
of the republican party?" is the question, "Is 
he faithful to the senator?" I have heard this 
unconstitutional and corrupting practice de- 
fended as if it were but an exchange of offices 
of friendship, honorable alike to giver and re- 
ceiver. That is a strange friendsliip in which 
two parties, at no cost to themselves, exchange 
benetita at the expense of the people, and mark 
their gratitude to each other by generous gifts 
from the public treasury. 

Certainly no republican, aspiring to purity in 
government, can be insensible to the dishonor 
of using the povvers conferred by the people and 
intended only for their advantage, to purchase 
or to repay private benefits, or the promotion 
of personal ambitious — a principle only sur- 
passed in baseness by that which would use the 
same powers for the giatification of personal re- 
venge. 

Under this system, which I have described 
but imperfectly, the honorable service of the re- 
public, which should be the noblest of human 
avocations, becomes degraded to an infamous 
bargain. The separation between the executive 
and legislative departments, on which the con- 
stitution of our own commonwealth lays such 
stress, "to the end that it may be a government 



of laws and not of men," is overtlirown. Tno 
exreutive power wliii-h ilie const. iuiii)u conliis 
iijjon an olticer chosen by tl)e people, is tiaus- 
fi-iie(.l to a buily ie|ireseiiinix suites in vvbicli 
Diilawaie and New Vurk liave an equal voice. 
Uespuiisiijilit.v rests in one place; aciual power 
in another. The president and heads of depart- 
ments become dependent upon congress; con- 
gress iu its Luru becomes dependent u the pres- 
ident. 

To overthrow this threefold evil, the repub- 
licans of Massachusetts ai:d the Union are 
solemnly engaged. The republicans of Massa- 
cliusetis iu their platform of 1873, denounced 
tlie undue interference of federal officers in 
elections, and demanded of the president that 
"puulie offices siiouki be hereafter used to 
serve the people and not to bribe them." The 
republicans of the whole country, by their rep- 
jesenialives at Cincinnati, asked the voles of 
the people ou the distinct promise that 

"The invariable rule iu appointments should 
have reference to the honesty, fidelity and ca- 
pacity of the appointees, giving to the party in 
power those places where harmony and vigor 
of admiuistratiou require its policy to be repre- 
sented, but permitting all others to be filled by 
persons selected with sole reference to the effi- 
ciency of the public service, aud the right of all 
citizens to share in the honor of rendering faith- 
ful service to the country." 

To this promise Gov. Hayes responded, "The 
resolutions are iu accord with my views, aud I 
heartily concur iu the principles they an- 
no ince. 

"The fifth resolution adopted by tlie conven- 
tion is of paramount interest. More than forty 
years ago a system of making appointmeuts to 
office grew up based upon the maxim "to the 
victors beloug the spoils." The old rule — the 
true rule, that honesty, capacity and fidelity 
constitute the only real qualifications for office, 
and that there is uo other claim, gave place to 
the idea that party services were to be chiefly 
considered. All parties in practice have adopt- 
ed this system. It has been essentially modified 
since its first introduction; it has not, however, 
been improved. At first the president, either 
directly or through the heads of the depart- 
ments, made all the appointmeuts, but gradual- 
ly the appointing power in many cases passed 
into the control of members of congress. The 
offices in these cases have become not merely 
rewards for party services, but rewards for ser- 
vices to party leaders. This system destroys 
the indepeudence of the separate departments 
of the government. It leads directly to ex- 
travagance and official incapacity. It is 
a temptation to dishonesty. It hinders 
and injures that careful supervision and 
strict accountability by which alone faith- 
ful and efficient public service can be se- 
cured. It obstructs the prompt removal and 
sure punishment of the unworthy. In every way 
it degrades the civil service aud the character of 
the government. It is felt, I am confident, by a 
large majority of the members of congress, to 
be an intolerable burden and an unwarrantable 
hindrance to the proper discharge of their legit- 
imate duties. It ought to be abolished. The 
reform should be thorough, radical aud com- 
plete. VVe should return to the principles aud 
practice of the founders of the government, sup- 
plying by legislation, when needed, that which 
was formerly established custom. They neither 
expected nor desired from public officers any 
partisan service. They meant that public offi- 
cers should owe their whole service to the gov- 
ernment and to the i>eople. They meant that 
the officer should be secure in his tenure as long 
as his personal character remained untarnished 
aud the performance of hia duties satisfactory. 



If elected I shall conduct the administration of 
the government upon these priiciples, and all 
constitutional powers vested in the executive 
will be employed to establish this reform." 

Unless we would be dishonored, we must sup- 
port the president in bis efforts to fulfill these 
pledges. The republican party cannot afford to 
make pledges before the election to be aban- 
doned alterward, or make lofty declarations of 
principle, to which its conduct shall give the lie. 
\'oa would not willingly exhibit the spectacle of 
that democracy which assembled here last 
weik, whose first resolution proclaimed its hos- 
tility to alleged frauds committed with respect 
to eleciions in the south, and whose last resolu- 
tion demands the repeal of laws passed in Mas- 
sachusetts, which aae the only obstacle to its 
own committing them here. 

It is said that, iu adopting this policy, the re- 
publican party throws away a weapon for us 
defence which its opponents will use against 
it whenever they get opportunity. But this 
surely is no objection, if the weapon be not 
lawtul and houorable. The republican party 
desire^J no advantage from a practice injurious 
to the public interest. It is said that no party 
can maintain itself iu this country which does 
not rely on its holders of office to conduct its 
campaigus, to defray its charges, aud to do the 
work ol its organization. History r»tutes this 
argument. The parties iu the days of our 
early presidents showed no lack of zeal or ener- 
gy. VVe do not complain of any want of energy 
iu our democratic opponents, who for sixteen 
years iu the nation, aud except for brief periods 
for fifty years in Massachusetts, have been ex- 
cluded from office. No great cause, in making 
its way to the hearts and consciences of man- 
kind, has found the aid of holders of office 
esential. When Matthew became an apostle 
he ceased to sit at the receipt of customs. 

Iu these remarks, I have spoken my own 
views on the questions of the hour, imperfectly, 
but frankly as becomes a republican speakiug 
to republicans. They, of course, biud uo man 
except as they approve themselves to his own 
judgment. In seeking to divorce the civil of- 
fices of the country from mere party service, do 
not deem that I fall into that cant of the doc- 
trinaire of which we hear so much in the early 
summer which speaks with arrogant and ignor- 
ant scorn of the party, the politician and the 
caucus. Such sentiments ridiculous ■Buywhere, 
would be doubly unbecoming here. Party, iu a 
free state, is that mechanism, by which, iu ad- 
ministration, public opinion becomes effective 
in government. In opposition, it is the zealous 
watchman of power. The politician — the hon- 
est politician — is that citizen who of all others 
best does his duty to his country in times of civil 
struggle. Without his marshaling of political 
forces, civil contests must be carried on by 
mobs and not by parties. The caucus and 
American liberty are twin sisters. They were 
born in the same city aud in the same hour. 
They were rocked in the same cradle. Sam 
Adams and Paul Revere and James Otis were|the 
inventors of the caucus. Our fathers put into 
the constitution of the state by the pen of John 
Adams, that clause of the bill of rights vf hich 
declares that "the right of the people to assem- 
ble in a peaceable aud orderly manner to con- 
sult together for the public good," shall be 
held sacred, with direct reference to the politi- 
cal caucus; and this was so declared by that 
great jurist and statesman. Chief Justice Shaw, 
iu one of his greatest constitutional judgments. 
It is an office worthy of the republicans of Mas- 
sachusetts—lineal successors of Adams aud 
Otis — to add to their great achievements iu the 
cause of constitutional liberty the restoration to 
their original purity of those great instrumen- 
talities, to which that liberty has owed so much. 



